


left side logical

by sonatine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky's Arm, M/M, Modern Era, Multi, everyone loves sam, flashback with period-typical homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5563978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine/pseuds/sonatine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Bucky’s arm that decided for him. He was used to the syncopated whirrs and clanks that helped denote his emotions to Steve—which, honestly, was a blessing in disguise for them both. When words and feelings stick to the back of your throat like bile, it’s easier to translate facial expressions and reactions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	left side logical

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirtybinary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtybinary/gifts).



It was Bucky’s arm that decided for him. He was used to the syncopated whirrs and clanks that helped denote his emotions to Steve—which, honestly, was a blessing in disguise for them both. When words and feelings stick to the back of your throat like bile, it’s easier to translate facial expressions and reactions.

“Yeah, but you’ve always been like this,” Steve shrugged when Bucky had tried to apologize, cornered in the farthest bit of the fire escape, clinging to the railings and holding tight to the feeling of cold metal. “For a loudmouth Irish charmer who wore his heart on his sleeve, you sure were fuckin’ awful at saying _I feel angry._ ”

“Pretty sure I was able to let you know anyhow,” Bucky said through clenched teeth. His metal arm was stroking soothing lines down the metal pole. His stomach was turning knots.

“You did,” said Steve, around a grin. “It’s okay, you know.”

“I do know.”

“And if you want—”

“I _do_ want—” Clink, swish, whirr. “I want.” The metal plates shifted and clanged and Bucky buried his face in Steve’s shoulder to mask his frustration.

Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky’s temple and held him tight. “Not all communication is verbal.”

“So my shrink tells me,” Bucky grumbled.

“You’ll find a way.” Steve’s hands were warm and comforting on Bucky’s back. Bucky closed his eyes, reveling in the warmth. “You always do.”

 

+

 

He started off slowly. Observing was second nature to him; initiating contact fell well below basic needs on his scale of necessities.

So Bucky begrudgingly, teeth-grittingly followed Steve and the Doc’s advice and focused on nonverbal communication. A brief touch to the elbow left him light-headed. He fled the apartment and had to walk around the block for an hour. Leaving a smoothie on the counter in the morning after their run was easier; Bucky could watch Sam’s reaction from their bedroom, as Steve looked on in amusement, toweling off from his shower.

The next week Bucky worked up to sitting at the kitchen table while Sam made breakfast. Sam, who was wise and kind, did not try to make small talk. He hummed to himself as he made eggs and toast, and sat next to Bucky in companionable silence as he ate.

Bucky’s arm did the fizzing thing when Sam accidentally brushed against Bucky on the way to the sink—it was the noise that usually showed up when Steve was rubbing a thumb over the back of Bucky’s hand. A contented noise. Bucky took that as a good sign.

 

+

 

“Hey, B, let’s go the farmer’s market,” Sam said to him one morning. Bucky was grateful for the way Sam phrased things. _Do you want to go to the farmer’s market?_ felt more leaden with choice. It was easier to say _yes_  or _no_ to a statement than to dredge up an answer to an open-ended question.

“Okay,” Bucky said, and they spent a fairly stress-free hour picking out weekly necessities and strange kinds of fruit that he knew Steve would enjoy trying and then cooking into new desserts the following week.

Steve loved to bake desserts; but he hated eating them. It was an ideal situation.

Bucky held the door open for Sam when they returned to the apartment. Sam grunted in thanks, arms full. Bucky took one armful of tote bags from him and helped him unload the groceries in the kitchen.

They moved in quiet tandem until a mislaid can threatened to fall out of the rickety cabinet door. Bucky caught the rogue can of tinned tomatoes as it careened toward Sam’s head. His left arm hissed its displeasure at the potential of Sam being hurt.

“Nice catch,” Sam said, _supremely_ unconcerned that a metal tin almost split his head open. Jesus. How did Bucky manage to collect these guys? “That coulda been a not-great end to a pretty nice morning.”

Sam’s eyes crinkled up when he smiled. He smiled with his whole being, unlike some people whose grins felt like stretched cling wrap. Bucky breathed in and out, _one_ two, and carefully stroked a metal finger down Sam’s cheek. Sam’s mouth parted slightly; he shivered.

Bucky’s arm shifted in heavy chunks. He managed to hold Sam’s gaze and smile back, softly, the left side of his mouth lifting (the left side of himself seemed to be doing a lot of carrying lately), before he went into his and Steve’s room and shut the door halfway. He burrowed in bed for the next half hour, until Steve came back from playing chess in the park.

“Sam’s blushing,” Steve said, smelling like outside and cheeks pink from the wind.

Bucky threw a pillow at his head.

 

+

 

“You know,” Bucky said to Steve, who was sprawled on the couch drawing, “that the left side of your brain analyzes information processed by the right?”

“That so,” said Steve.

“Yep. It also controls language and is analytical, while the right side is more non-verbal and intuitive.”

“You get stuck in a research spiral again?”

“Maybe. But here’s the weird thing: the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body. And vice versa.”

“Huh.”

“So maybe all those logical, analytical thoughts are really propelling your body’s intuitive, nonverbal reactions.”

“Maybe your brain logically wants you to jump Sam’s bones.”

 

+

 

It had been like this with Steve, too. In the thirties, in Brooklyn, where _men were men_ and fairies were beaten to death, it wasn’t only confusion as to _why_ his stomach was tying itself in knots around Steve when Bucky knew, definitively, that he liked women, but also concern for Steve’s minimal projection of well being.

Even though Bucky Barnes was great at lying to Steve ( _I’m not hungry; Nah it wasn’t expensive; I was just passing by and happened to look down that alley)_ , he was terrible at lying to himself. His hands shook around Steve for one year, two months, and three days before he finally gave in and kissed Steve. The nerves he’d been feeling for a year immediately settled, and in their place Bucky had felt nothing more than a sense of contentment. He may not trust his brain, but he trusted his body.

 

+

 

How many times had he hallucinated Steve over the seventy years of his entrapment?

Countless.

Bucky had years of one-sided conversations stored up in his head. He told Steve everything. Steve had smiled and frowned and fought and laughed perfectly—but Bucky’s body felt no warmth. Bucky’s body felt no reaction.

Bucky’s body was an antenna to Steve. He was a receptor; a gravitational pull. Even when Bucky’s mind had wanted, _wanted so badly_ for Steve to be there, it wasn’t until a fight on a bridge in a city of concrete and buildings like any other that Bucky’s heart had started to pound and his breath had come up short. Bucky had fled; and Bucky had felt.

 

+

 

Bucky was sitting in a chair in the living room after sluggishly pulling himself out of his and Steve’s bed, because Sam had suggested changing locations even within the apartment when it was too much to go outside.

The door opened and Sam came inside. It wasn’t his usual jaunty pace. Bucky took in the shuffle, the less-than-delighted face, the heaviness in his movements.

Analysis: Sam’s day had been fucking awful.

Bucky’s analysis was confirmed when Sam reheated soup, changed immediately into old Air Force sweats, and burrowed into the couch. He shot a wan smile at Bucky. “How was your day?”

Bucky tramped down any nerves and stood up. He walked over to the couch. He sat next to Sam. He sat very close to Sam.

Sam was trying to hide his surprise but not doing a very good job of it. Bucky snaked an arm around Sam’s shoulders and nudged him to lean in. Sam did, curling into Bucky’s side.

Bucky wondered if Sam could hear his heart beating clear out of his chest. When Sam started breathing in time to its rhythm, he decided that he could.

 

+

 

It is not nighttime in Sam’s bedroom like he imagined it—it is broad daylight in the kitchen, while Bucky is making coffee and Sam is tapping away at his phone. Bucky is watching Sam’s expressions. They change so quickly; it’s fascinating.

Sam looks up and catches Bucky’s gaze. He smiles, a slow smile, that draws Bucky toward him. Bucky’s hands cup Sam’s shoulders then slide down to his waist. He stares at Sam’s mouth, wanting but still hesitant and Sam _waits_ because Sam is good and kind and strong, and when Bucky’s arm makes a noise of impatience, Sam _understands_. He presses his lips against Bucky’s, lightly, a statement that Bucky is free to say _yes_  or _no_ to, and Bucky chooses to say yes.

He pulls Sam’s hips until his body is flush against Bucky’s. Bucky gasps into his mouth and Sam responds, gently at first, then eager and giving.

 

+

 

Bucky’s wires are crossed at first when he wakes up curled around Sam. Sam doesn’t twitch and kick in his sleep like Steve does, which is why Bucky is confused that there is shifting movement behind him. Also all the sheets have been stolen to the right side of the bed.

“Greedy bastard, isn’t he,” Sam mumbles into Bucky’s neck.

“Who’s the one sharing his bed right now?” Steve says crankily.

Bucky’s brain finally tracks all of the limbs in his bed: Sam’s leg between his, Sam’s arm over his torso and resting on Steve’s hip, Steve’s hand curled into Sam’s, Steve’s leg pressed against Bucky, and the rest of Steve’s body either flailing off the bed or scrunched up between pillows.

Bucky is so warm he thinks he might burst from it.

His arm gives off a little whirr of satisfaction. Sam chuckles and Steve snorts. And Bucky realizes that maybe his communication wasn’t so nonverbal after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  [ [tumblr link](http://sonatine.tumblr.com/post/146328272114/left-side-logical) ]


End file.
